SPAIN AND CUBA. 



THE 



GENEVA PAMPHLET 



ON THE RELATIONS BETWEEN 



SPAIN AND CUBA 



PRE CEDED BY AN EXPLANATION OF TEE INTEREST 

WEIGH TEE AMERICAN PEOPLE EA VE IN TEE 

SOLUTION OF TEE CUBAN DIFFICULTY. 



GENEVA, FEBRUARY 8, 1876. 



NEW YORK: 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

549 & 551 BROADWAY. 
1876. 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/spaincubagenevapOOjorr 



1 



SPAIN" AND CUBA. 



THE 



GENEVA PAMPHLET 



ON THE GELATIONS BETWEEN 



SPAIN AND CUBA, 



PRECEDED BY AN EXPLANATION OF THE INTEREST 

WHICH THE AMERICAN PEOPLE HA VE IN THE 

SOLUTION OF THE CITE AN DIFFICULTY. 



GENEVA, FEBRUARY 8, 1876. 



NEW YORK: 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 

549 & 551 BROADWAY. 

]876. 

\ 



Q»FT 

KATHERINE ». FJSHl^ 
JUWfi 24 1940 



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In 



EXPLANATION, 



" The scientific and literary progress of Cuba and Porto 
Rico, their population and wealth, especially with the former, 
the growing extent and importance of their foreign commerce, 
placed them in an exceptional condition, requiring very differ- 
ent laws from those in observance in other provinces beyond 
the seas." — Canovas del Castillo, Decree, November 25, 1865. 

" We can better proceed, in the present situation of things, 
without even this friendly intervention. 

" A time will come when the good offices of the United 
States will be not only useful., but indispensable, in the final 
arrangements between Spain and Cuba. We will ascertain 
the form in which they can be employed, and confidently 
count upon your assistance." — General Prim. 

" In this early instruction was expressed the sincere and 
unselfish hope of the President that the Government of Spain 
would seek some honorable and satisfactory adjustment, based 
upon emancipation and self-government, which would restore 
peace, and afford a prospect of a return of prosperity to Cuba. 

The material interests of trade and of commerce are im- 
paired to a degree which calls for remonstrance, if not for 
another line of conduct, on the part of all commercial nations." 
— Hamilton Fish, Note, November 5, 1875. 

We beg leave to offer to the American public the transla- 
tion of a pamphlet published at Geneva last February, on the 
present condition of Cuba, which has attracted a good deal of 
attention in the Spanish press. It has been said to embody 



the sentiments of the prime-minister of Alfonso XII., Senor 
Canovas del Castillo, and coincides to a certain extent with 
the views of the Secretary of State of this republic. 

Having for many years given great attention to all that 
relates to the island of Cuba, we make bold to assert that we 
have read no public document, or either public or private 
expression of opinion, coming from a distinguished or well- 
known statesman, wherein the importance of that island to 
this country has been belittled or denied. We have seen it 
stated that the acquisition of the Great Antille would necessi- 
tate a. powerful navy to hold it within the Union, while it is 
obvious that the long line of low coasts in the South without 
guarded ports, and the trade flowing into the Gulf from the 
Mississippi, would be paramount motives for keeping a power- 
ful navy for the defense of the one and the protection of the 
•other; and those familiar with the subject will remember the 
anxiety with which our zealous public men have urged the 
principle that Cuba should never be allowed to fall into the 
hands of a first-rate naval power. In addition to these vital 
considerations there is another which awakens the interest in 
our relations with that island : the critical condition in which 
it is placed by a civil war of eight years, and the hostility 
evinced in the Spanish tariffs and the consequent reduction 
of our exports, cannot be looked upon without deep concern. 

The imports from Cuba, consisting of sugar, molasses, to- 
bacco, etc., etc., amount to eighty-live per cent, of all exports 
from that island, of which Spain consumes only two per cent. 
From the United States official statistics, we know that the 
people of this country have bought Cuban products as follows, 
during six years : 

1868 to 1869 $56,976,491 

1869 to 1870 '. 53,777,108 

1870 to 1871 57,534,925 

1871 to 1872 67,264,315 

1872 to 1873 77,077,725 

1873 to 1874 85,428,097 

Total $398,058,661 

During the same period Spain has bought from the United 
States : 



1868 to 1869 $11,816,020 

1869 to 1870 12,879,287 

1870 to 1871 13,768,0-0 

1871 to 1872 12,960,841 

1872 to 1873 15,117,767 

1873 to 1874 15,677,716 

Total $82,219,621 

Balance against United States $315,839,040 

This is the more astonishing, that Cuba needs the products 
of the United States ; she requires millions of pounds of beef 
and port, which cannot come from Texas or the Northwest in 
consequence of the high and differential duties, and so respect- 
ing other articles. 

But Spanish vessels can load at Barcelona with wine, oil, 
and manufactures, for the markets of Buenos Ayres, where 
they load in exchange with jerked beef for the mass of the 
population of Cuba. 

If the people of the United States did not purchase the 
Cuban exports, we do not see that Spain could easily find, a 
market in South America for her products, nor Buenos Ayres 
a market in Cuba for her beef. The rice of our Southern 
States is also repelled from its nearest and natural market in 
Cuba by high and differential duties. To supply its place, 
this article is bought now at Calcutta or other ports of India, 
by Liverpool merchants, and brought to England, discharged 
at the bonded warehouses, and shipped in Spanish vessels to 
Cuba, a transaction which is made possible by the fact that 
British legislation does not retaliate the differential duties im- 
posed on foreign flags on that island. 

The basis, therefore, of this commerce, which swells the 
carrying-trade of other nations, consists unequivocally in the 
purchase of eighty-five per cent, of the exports of the Antille 
by the United States. It seems unnatural that even perish- 
able articles should come across the ocean, from Spain and the 
Canary Islands, when they might be obtained more advan- 
tageously from the nearest neighbor. It has happened that, 
while the flour of America and that of Turkey have gone to 
supply the wants of Great Britain, Spain, under her restrictive 
system, unable to appear in a foreign market so near to her as 



6 

the British Isles, has brought her cereals to Cuba, whence the 
American producer is repelled. 

The dry-goods trade, owing to Spanish fiscal legislation 
and American retaliating enactments, together with cheap 
European labor, has been absorbed by Catalonia and Great 
Britain, some by France and Germany, absolutely nothing by 
New England manufacturers. 

The difference between what we imported from tropical 
countries in 1872 to 1873, as compared with what we sent to 
them, was $102,000,000, distributed as follows : 

In favor of Cuba $62,000,000 

In favor of Porto Eico 10,000,000 

In favor of Brazil 25,000,000 

In favor of Manila, East Indies 5,000,000 

No one now believes in what was called the balance of 
trade as showing a positive loss. Just as an individual who 
ships goods receives back the value in some shape or other, the 
aggregate number of shippers who make the whole of the ex- 
ports receive in return the value of the same. But this not- 
withstanding, it is evident that the consumer of the staple 
articles of any country is the one to stimulate production, 
wealth, and general development of said country. Can it be 
reasonable that the people of the United States, consuming 
in six years nearly $100,000,000 of Cuban products, should 
only sell in exchange $82,000,000 of American products? 
Have we no good ground to expect and desire that the im- 
pulse given to the wealth of the nation by investments in cot- 
ton, cereals, beef, coal, iron, lumber, manufactures, etc., should 
also be derived from investments in the tropical products; 
and is there any one spot on earth so especially pointed out 
by Nature as the island of Cuba for reciprocity and prosper- 
ous interchange? Without entering into details, the result of 
a trade so constrained seems to be the payment of our bal- 
ances in gold, or bills of exchange, which are equal to gold, and 
constituting in London our clearing-house instead of having it 
in our own ports. 

A gentleman of more ability than his modesty will admit, 
who was kind enough to furnish the items herein quoted in his 



views of the development promoted by a great consumer, fixes 
numerically the ratio of this growth, contending that the people 
of the United States are now supporting something like five 
millions of inhabitants outside of the Union, instead of an 
equal number within if the conditions of consumption were 
reciprocal. We have now briefly adduced motives for very 
strong interest in the fate and proper organization of the trade 
of the island of Cuba. And in the general prostration of busi- 
ness and decrease in our shipping, and depreciation of our 
city and rural property, can we afford to lose altogether the 
trade of that island by the destructive warfare which is devas- 
tating it ? On this subject x the Hon. Secretary of State, in 
note of November 5, 1875, says : 

" The United States purchase more largely than other peo- 
ple of the productions of the island of Cuba, and therefore 
more than any other, for this reason (and still more by reason 
of its immediate neighborhood), is interested in the arrest of a 

1 Value of the produce and merchandise exported from Cuba to the 
United States, and of what was imported into Cuba from American ports 
during the fiscal years of 1870 and 1871, according to official data in the 
Treasury Department at "Washington : 

EXPOETED FEOM CXTBA. 

Sugars $47,507,417 

Melado 9,201,317 

Molasses 3,280,630 

Tobacco in leaf 3,314,506 

Cigars 2,523,704 

Fruits 518,805 

Other products 1,348,150 

Total $67,694,529 

Impoeted into Cuba. 

United States produce and merchandise $17,600,787 

Foreign produce and merchandise in warehouse 

in the United States 1,795,789 

Total $19,396,576 

These sums would make a general movement of trade of $87,091,105, 
but, according to the ex-Intendente Mariano Cancio Villamil, the exports 
and imports are no less than $115,000,000 to $125,000,000 ; and the statis- 
tics corresponding to the year 1874 show $85,000,000 of exports to the 
United States, and $15,000,000 of imports from the same. 



8 

system of wanton destruction which disgraces the age and af- 
fects every commercial people on the face of the globe." 

Apart from the exigencies of immediate neighborhood and 
the interchange of commercial relations growing out of this 
vicinity, there is the fate of the citizens of the United States 
and the destruction of their property substantiated in the note 
of Hon. Hamilton Fish, already quoted. 

But, coming to more recent events, our citizens have been 
grievously injured by the desultory course of taxation im- 
posed for national objects in utter disregard of the existing or- 
ganic law 1 of municipalities and decrees guaranteeing justice 
in the distribution of burdens. Thus the expedition to Mexi- 
co, the conquest of San Domingo, the station of Fernando Po, 2 
the diplomatic legations in this hemisphere, the expenses 
caused by the war of the Pacific, the yearly remittances to 
Spain from the Havana treasury, the disbursements to carry 
on the Carlist War, and, finally, 3 the robberies committed by 

1 Organic municipal law of July 27, 1859, and financial circulars. 

2 Remittances tt) Spain $34,172,693 60 

Cost of expedition to Mexico and San Do- 
mingo 18,000,000 00 

Cost of the present civil war in Cuba up to 

the date of the official document 62,900,000 00 

Cost of the support of the station of Fernan- 
do Po for eighteen years at $289,478. . . 5,210,604 00 

Cost of legations and consulates of Spain in 

Mexico and the republics of the Pacific. 53,700 00 

The above items from the official budget to the Cories of October 26, 
1871, formed part of the debt referred to in General Concha's decree of 
July 10, 1874. 

To the same effect Intendente Don Mariano Cancio Villamil, in official 
report, December, 1873, states that the proposition to have the Cuban 
debt recognized by Spain had failed, although "it is not possible to take 
away from this debt its national character by reason of its origin, as it 
proceeds from general obligations created by the Supreme Government in 
the military enterprises of Mexico and San Domingo and in the defense of 
the integrity of the national territory." 

3 The ex-Intendente Mariano Cancio de Villamil, in an exposition dated 
December 4, 1874, addressed to the Secretary of the Colonies, says that 
"the frauds committed by the officials and merchants of the island are 
proved in various ways, and among others because the administrative pa- 
pers of the dues show unquestionably that goods have been manifested, 
discharged, and entered superior in quantity and quality to those appraised 



9 

the financial officials of Spain, have caused a deficit in the fis- 
cal resources for which American citizens have been taxed 
five per cent, on their capital, fifteen per cent, on their revenue 
in gold, ten per cent, in currency also on their revenue, upon 
assessments arbitrarily made, with no heed to sworn statements, 
or law and regulations. 

This cheerless picture of the position of the American citi- 
zen in Cuba becomes more galling by the discovery recently 
made of a treaty entered into between Germany and Spain on 
the 30th of March, 1868. 

By Article V. of the same, German subjects are exempted 
from extraordinary war-taxes, and its application to Cuba was 
made the subject of an additional treaty entered into on the 
16th of July of the same year, Article II. of which enacts: 

" The same stipulations of said treaty of 30th of March, 
1868, notwithstanding the existing laws and administrative 
decrees for Spanish colonial possessions, shall be extended to 
Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippine Islands." 

In the impossibility of disregarding the claims of Ger- 
many, the authorities of Cuba have privately given orders to 
suspend coactive measures against German subjects without 
publishing the origin of such leniency, and it is asserted that 
they are preparing the substitution of the several war-taxes, 
by one which shall be called unique, and that will not express 
the object for which it is imposed. 1 

and paid for, to the extent that, in only fifty-two entries which have called 
for another liquidation, appears a loss to the treasury of $135,272." He 
also states that the action of the officials in the abuses committed is more 
serious and censurable at these times, because the country is in arms de- 
fending its integrity, for which it needs all its resources, and has created a 
large debt to make up what has been in part unlawfully appropriated. — 
Oakcio Villamtl's Exposition to the Minister of the Colonies. 

1 The law of strangers, promulgated by the Spanish Cortes in 1870, 
does not cancel the concessions by treaties or previous legislation. So far 
from it, by Article XXXIII., foreigners are required to pay "all classes of 
taxes which according to the laws, regulations, and tariffs, may correspond 
to the industry or commerce which they should practise." The interpre- 
tation by the island authorities is to the effect that foreigners are required 
to pay all classes of taxes regardless of the laws, regulations, and tariffs, in 
observance in 1870. Article XXXIV., which does not conflict with the 



10 

It seems to us that in the several objects herein reported, 
which concern the American people, we have adduced strong 
and sufficient motives for the publication of the Geneva pam- 
phlet, which contains the most important facts and antecedents 
of the Cuban conflict. Whether the solution proposed therein 
be feasible or not, it is not our part to say. 

Abolition of Slavery. 

A few words on this subject may not be out of place here. 
Events transpired in the island of Cuba have demonstrated 
as it must have been ascertained, by the diplomatic and con- 
sular representatives of this nation, that a struggle has existed 
for the last forty years on this subject. The Cuban commis- 
sioners at Madrid expressed their sentiment on this subject : 
"Cuba is no longer bent," they said, "on sustaining negro 
slavery. . . . Cuba has availed herself of the first opportunit} r 
to protest against the common responsibility between the 
country and the African trade. ... A cause," they said, 
*' based on the precedents of slavery, is irretrievably lost at 
the tribunal of human conscience;" and on the 26th of April, 
1867, they proposed to the Government to abolish slavery 
in a few years, indemnifying the loss through a loan of 
$15,000,000, the payment of which should be proportionately 
distributed among the expenditures during fifteen years; and, 
in order to make the outlays less heavy, they prayed that 
the large disbursements incumbent on the nation to pay, 
which were unjustly drawn from the Cuban tax-payers, could 
and should be excluded from the budget of the colony. 

Notwithstanding these facts, men of business everywhere 
fall into the natural error of anticipating ruin and devastation 
as the unavoidable consequences of emancipation, and they 
point to the bloody result of San Domingo as a warning. The 
ex-Intend ente Yillamil says that, " as there exist powerful 
reasons to condemn slavery, outlawed as it is, there is no need 

preceding, provides that real estate belonging to foreigners should con- 
tribute with such imports as gravitate on them. 

The expression "gravitate " is intended to convey the idea of generally 
and regularly established imposts which fall on the objects from their own 
weight, as the mortgage based upon a royal order. 



11 

for further legislation about it ; it will be enough to adminis- 
ter properly the present laws, publishing the gradual progress 
of liberation, to satisfy skeptical minds, and do away with pre- 
texts for opposition at home and criticism abroad of our co- 
lonial policy." The idea that tropical products would cease 
with the abolition of slavery predominates in the judgment 
of the above writer, in common with the body of Peninsular 
Spaniards. But a few remarks on the difficulties apprehended 
in a change of the status of the laborer may possibly show 
them to be less than they seem, or that the continuance of 
slavery will not remove them. 

The slaves are not many in proportion to the whole popu- 
lation, and in this respect, it is well known, the situation is 
much more favorable to freedom in Cuba than it was in any 
of the tropical countries at the time of the abolition of slavery. 
Emancipation is not now considered as necessarily causing 
ruin within the tropics, as was once the honest belief. When 
suddenly imposed in the British and French possessions, the 
implements and system of agriculture and manufacture were 
positively in their infancy. Cheap, abundant, and rough 
labor, such as Africa could furnish, was the foundation of 
wealth in those regions. The human body, easily replaced 
and little valued, was cared for accordingly, and planters 
were generally, as usual in slave countries, struggling under 
heavy debt, vainly but ever fancying themselves on the eve 
of acquiring a fortune. In Cuba, where sugar is the staple 
production on estates which really yield profits, the capital 
consisting in slaves is comparatively small, and buildings, 
complicated machinery, and well-cultivated fields, constitute 
at the present day the bulk of the estimated value. 

Furthermore, the laborers disseminated over more than 
one-half of the island, either voluntarily or reluctantly, have 
in great numbers, during the vicissitudes of the rebellion, left 
their homes, some returning and others not. Thus the rest- 
less feeling perceptible in the masses at the commencement of 
the outbreak has been augmented. Good policy, therefore, if 
not paramount necessity, should teach Spain to adopt a meas- 
ure calculated to restore quiet, and establish the regular 
operations of industry and agriculture, without the exorbitant 



12 

outlay demanded from private individuals, to protect property 
from incendiarism and depredations. It is not unreasonable 
to suppose that conservative and enlightened planters, Span- 
iards among them, would accept a solution of the slavery 
question, answering the desire for peace and order, and satis- 
factory to the cry of liberty for the masses. 

In order practically to show that the advantages of reci- 
procity in the trade with America are far more valuable than 
preservation of slavery, we notice, taking as a basis exports be- 
fore the rebellion, that the estimated 2,600,000 boxes of sugar 
imported into the United States bear a weight of taxation and 
duties of about four cents per lb., equal to $44,200,000. This 
sum is arrived at estimating the box at 425 lbs., and the du- 
ties on imports as follows : 

Export duty in Cuba, including war-tax . £ cent per lb. 

Import duty in Cuba on articles required for the 

production of sugar ..... ^ " 

Territorial taxes in Cuba equal to ... f " 

Mean rate of duty in the United States, 2 c. 
Twenty-five per cent, added since last Congress 2-J- " 

Total 4 cents. 

Without taking into account the remaining one-fifth of 
the sugar exports, or molasses, tobacco, etc., the amount of 
$44,000,000 in round numbers exceeds by far the $28,000,000 
required to pay 200,000 laborers at the rate of twelve dollars 
a month which is now performed by slaves. 

Fortunately, therefore, the security and productiveness of 
rural enterprises can be combined hereafter in Cuba with the 
claims of justice and human rights. 



SPAIN AND CUBA. 



" The motto of all or nothing involves a serious political error." 

MlNGHETTI. 

" There is a given class of ideas which may be slaughtered but not de- 
graded." 

We come once more before the public, to break a silence 
of seven years, during which reason and truth could not be 
heard because of the excitement of frantic passions. Now, on 
the contrary, the Peninsular Spaniards of Cuba seem to enter 
a period of comparative quiet ; the wealthy Spaniards of 
Havana commence to recover that influence of which they 
have been deprived by the turbulent masses ; and captains- 
general discharge their duties with no danger of being 
shipped away by their subordinates. 

We see, on the other hand, that the unstable governments 
which during the last five years have ruled over the Peninsula 
are superseded by the legitimate monarchy of centuries, with 
its national conditions of strength, order, and moderation ; that 
the Carlists are on the eve of being vanquished ; that the Cortes 
are about to meet; and, lastly, that the time is near at hand 
when, with the restoration of peace and harmony throughout 
Spain, she may be able to contemplate calmly and impartially 
the events which beyond the Atlantic are annihilating her 
most valued colony. 

Such a state of things inspires confidence ; encourages the 
mind to ask for justice, and it even induces the hope that it 
may be possible to obtain it. If, unfortunately, we should be 



14 

mistaken, if the advisers of him who calls himself the king of 
all Spaniards should reject our petition, we shall always enjoy 
the satisl'action of having discharged a sacred duty. 

The most efficient way to eradicate an evil is to remove 
the causes from which it arises. We ask, therefore, " What 
causes in 1868 produced the insurrection of Cuba? " A few 
paragraphs will suffice to make them known. 

From the commencement of this century there existed a 
strong political bond between the Great Antille and the moth- 
er-country. The deputies of the former appeared at the Cortes 
in 1812, 1820, and 1834, and, although such representation 
was of little practical advantage to the island, it signified the 
acknowledgment of legitimate right, it maintained the dig- 
nity of the islanders, and kept alive on the other 'side of the 
ocean the great and fruitful idea of one common country and 
nationality. 

Notwithstanding this, in 1836, doubtless under the influ- 
ence of a Governor-General of Cuba, who since the day ot 
Ayacucho swore everlasting hatred toward everything Ameri- 
can, the Progresista majority of the Cortes resolved to exclude 
and did exclude from the National Congress the deputies from 
the Antilles, refusing even to receive the energetic but respect- 
ful protest of those deputies. Without one definite motive and 
with no pretext, however small, Spain broke the political tie 
which since the time of Charles V. had bound America to her, 
refusing all defense to the victim, and inflicting on her sons 
beyond the seas an increasing grievance for which floods of 
blood have since been shed. The measure was so violent and 
iniquitous, that the same Cortes, either to justify it or from re- 
morse, voted an additional article to the Constitution of 1837, 
to the effect that the colonies should be ruled by special laws. 

It is now thirty years since that solemn promise was made, 
but, though it was subsequently confirmed by Article LXXX. 
of the Constitution of 1845, it is yet unfulfilled. Is there any 
one who can characterize this course as either just or noble ? 

Moreover, Cuba, thus deprived since 1837 of political life 
iu Spain, was likewise kept without it on her own soil. By 
royal order of 28th of May, 1825, her captain-general had been 
invested with the same powers held by governors of besieged 



15 

towns, with authority to expatriate from the island every one 
whose public or private conduct inspired him with suspicion. 
It is easy to imagine the great abuse which must have origi- 
nated from such unbounded authority ; but it is not our pur- 
pose to relate the actions of any particular ruler, because a 
day will come when history shall judge them all according to 
their acts. 

Enough to say, that in unhappy Cuba arbitrary and des- 
potic government has only been checked, by the greater or 
lesser intelligence and the better or worse character of the 
individuals who, with no responsibility whatever, have at their 
own caprice disposed of life and property in the full glare of 
the nineteenth century. 

And it should be noted that the position of Superior Gov- 
ernor having been tilled habitually by generals in the Spanish 
army, their qualifications and antecedents of the soldier have 
made them little suited to initiate, direct, and resolve the 
numberless complex affairs of an active, wealthy, industrious,, 
and enlightened people. The chiefs placed at the head of the 
several departments and districts into which Cuba is subdi- 
vided have also been soldiers ; and these authorities, it is 
unnecessary to add, being supremely ignorant, have in the 
discharge of their subordinate functions gone much beyond 
the excesses of which they had the example in their superior 
in office. 

No wonder, therefore, that there should have been a Gov- 
ernor of Matanzas who, being dissatisfied, in 1854, with the 
residence provided by the municipality for those of his class, 
by his own exclusive authority imposed on the inhabitants of 
his district an extraordinary tax, rasing thereby so large a sum 
that he built with it a palace in which his fortunate successors 
have since resided. Thus it happens that any brigadier in 
the army can do in Cuba what the king dare not do in Spain. 

No right to initiate a measure is permitted even to the 
municipalities. The corporation of Matanzas addressed the 
governor-general a petition in 1813, complaining of the open 
scandal caused by the landing of freshly-imported Africans 
within its boundaries ; but, not only was the corporation re- 
proved, but the individuals who started the idea were expa- 



10 

triated and died in exile. This fact, among many others 
which might be cited, proves that the Cubans, both individ- 
ually and in corporate bodies, are deprived of the very first of 
political rights, i. e., the right of petition. 

Of course, the press, subjected to strict censorship, has not 
been able to discuss anything of importance to that country. 
Its role has ever been merely that of a clave who is expected 
to burn incense in honor of her master, and to palliate to pub- 
lic opinion the most wanton outrages, witnessing the increase, 
since 1S3S, in the slave-trade, and the incredible venal acts to 
which it frequently led. The press was bound to keep silent, 
when not compelled to applaud. 

From that date Cubans were systematically excluded from 
public offices on the island, which by 1S40 had, become the 
patrimony of favorites sent from Spain. These boasted, with 
some honorable exceptions, that they had not come to America 
to enjoy the air, but to acquire a fortune for themselves, and 
so successful were the arts employed that the greater number 
obtained that end in the short period allotted before the arrival 
of successors who, like themselves, came in search of gold. 
Cabinets were changed in Madrid with painful rapidity, and 
each one brought on a new remittance of proteges attached to 
its banner. The bureaucratic system was thereby developed, 
and, in order to reward a greater number of political ad- 
herents in the Peninsula, new offices and administrative cen- 
tres were created in Cuba, which, besides being useless ex- 
crescences and veritable sinecures, increased the colonial 
budget. 

Who, living in Spain, may not name many functionaries 
of high or low degree who, after four or five years 1 residence 
in Cuba, and even a less time, have returned scandalously 
wealthy? The school of immorality thus established has con- 
tinued to sink its roots deeper and deeper ; and, moreover, 
these Peninsular Spaniards, as a body, are wholly unacquainted 
with the nature, habits, and mode of life in the Great Antille, 
and, just as they begin to learn the same, their successors in 
office appear ; and this incessant novitiate, coupled with the 
contemptuous neglect of the opinion of the people among 
whom we run the race ot a fleeting meteor, has corrupted 



17 

public administration in Cuba to its very foundations. And 
yet, those who are born, who live and die there ; those who 
from a filial love would labor to make the material, intellect- 
ual, and moral progress of the island permanent — not dazzling 
and transient — the Cubans, dare not complain of such egre- 
gious evils, nor ask a remedy, because they would be instantly 
visited with an anathema for being bad Spaniards, or per- 
chance condemned to perpetual banishment. The fundament- 
al principle that taxes shall be discussed and voted by those 
who pay them, is regarded in Cuba as an abominable heresy. 
Taxes are established and increased at the will of the rulers 
without ever being submitted previously to the Cubans, who 
are never informed of their application, and never even per- 
mitted, after the Government has fixed the total amount, to 
have them collected on articles and by means which, though 
not the same as the official ones, would in the end be less bur- 
densome to the country. 

There is one order of ideas which, like the fire of the vestal 
of old, is kept alive through all time, and everywhere pure 
and untouched, because it is held sacred : we mean the admin- 
istration of justice. Yet Cuba, in the midst of her sufferings^ 
has not even had that consoling refuge ; but, as this pamphlet 
must not be enlarged to the size of a book, and as it is not our 
purpose to raise the bandage that covers the ulcers of our con- 
temporaneous judiciary, we shall restrict ourselves to stating 
that one captain-general did in a single day dismiss from the 
bench eight judges of the High Court of Appeals of Havana ; 
and if this measure, applied to the highest court on the island, 
was unpardonable, the dependent condition of inferior judges 
may from this act be inferred. 

The picture which we have so rapidly sketched is simply 
the reflection of the normal condition of Cuba for half a cen- 
tury. While enjoying complete peace and quiet, the legal 
order of the administration was restricted solely to excluding 
the Cubans from political communion with Spain ; to forbid- 
ding their intervention of whatever kind in the public affairs 
of the island : to gagging their tongues and restraining their 
pens; to depriving them, even, of the right to complain or 
petition for remedy ; and, lastly, to reducing them to the ab- 
2 



18 

ject condition of a race inferior to their parents, having always 
the spectacle of their shame before them, with no other future 
for their children than the same sad degradation. 

SECOND. 

Discontent was general, and all the deeper was the in- 
dignation excited because the evil was attributed to an abuse 
by Spain of her superior power. The Cubans felt, in silence, 
bitter humiliation not without dreading that their patience 
under enormous grievances might be regarded as vileness 
rather than loyalty. Many an ardent youth sought relief in 
absence, and went over to the United States, where they had 
opportunities to contrast the lot of their country with that of 
a nation overflowing with life, power, and wealth, acquired 
through political freedom, through labor, and respect for indi- 
vidual rights. From the comparison arose the idea of the 
annexation of Cuba to the American Union. The time seemed 
propitious. The politicians of Mississippi and the two Caro- 
linas, who felt their influence waning in consequence of the 
admission of the Territory of Kansas as a free State, took up 
with pleasure the project of a new and populous slave State 
whose deputies and senators would aid them to regain prepon- 
derance in Congress. 

Carried away by illusions ever fostered by strong desires, 
the Cuban emigrants endeavored to propagate their hopes, 
and obtained the cooperation of the Spanish General ISTarciso 
Lopez. An expedition under his command started for Cuba 
in 1850, and landed at Cardenas, of which it took possession 
almost without opposition, but after sixty hours was obliged 
to leave, because the country lent it no aid, while a strong 
government force was approaching. 

On their return to New York the same party of discon- 
tented Cubans gathered fresh means, and in 1851 another ex- 
pedition, also headed by Lopez, landed on the northern coast 
near Bahia Honda, and had sharp encounters with the Spanish 
troops, in which the Spanish General Enna lost his life. It 
advanced into the interior, but without being joined by any 
one, and after nineteen days of wandering, broken into small 
parties and suffering from hunger, the chief was taken pris- 



19 

oner and executed. Almost simultaneously, and probably 
mistaking the watchword previously concerted, Don Agnstin 
Agiiero at Principe, and Don Isidoro Armenteros at Trinidad, 
rose in arms ; but these leaders, unable to increase the small 
number of adherents whom they took to the held, fell into the 
hands of the Government and were shot. 

The blood, however, which was shed abundantly on this 
occasion did not stay the idea of annexation, because an idea 
is only destroyed by another of greater vitality. Yet the 
scheme framed in Havana, in 1854, for annexing Cuba to the 
great Republic, was of a character entirely different from the 
one preceding it. 

The first was disinterested, generous, and patriotic, whereas 
the second, concerted by capitalists and wealthy property- 
holders, originated in the egotistical and unchristian idea of 
perpetuating slavery in Cuba. The conspiracy concocted for 
this purpose collapsed, however; and Don Ramon Pinto, who 
was considered by the local government as its head, died on 
the scaffold, though the counselor of the captain-general, 
Sen or Garcia Camba, stated as his legal opinion that the case 
lacked the proofs required by the law to declare him gui!ty. 

The strict impartiality which we have adopted as our rule 
in writing this paper has made it necessary for us to narrate 
these events. But it must have been noticed that they all 
appertain to a brief period of four years ; that each one had 
only a very brief existence ; that they were energetic explo- 
sions of rage bursting from a small body of ardent hearts; and 
that the masses of the Cuban population, notwithstanding 
their sympathy with the object of the expeditionists, stood 
dumb and immovable. 

For these reasons, and because the hateful government im- 
posed by the Peninsula on her colony was anterior by far to 
the events just reported, we are justified in repeating what we 
before asserted, namely, that Spain organized and perfected a 
tyrannical system against Cuba when the island enjoyed the 
most profound peace and quiet ; and, also, that said system 
was the origin and direct cause of those explosive and des- 
perate revolutionary efforts. 

It was the civil war, so unexpectedly brought on in the 



20 

United States, which fixed the sentiment of the Cubans. They 
at once became aware that, in the giant strife carried on by 
the Southern and Northern sections of the republic, nothing 
less than the future of the Great Antille was at stake. They 
discovered that, under pretense of self-government for each 
State, was disguised the real object of the war, which was the 
preservation and extension of slavery. In spite of the favor- 
able result of the first battles for the South, they foresaw the 
final triumph of justice over interest based on laws already 
undermined by public opinion. And, convinced that the 
violent extinction of the involuntary labor of the negroes in 
Cuba would surely ruin her, they undertook to avert the dan- 
ger by such means as were within their reach : their conser- 
vative and peaceful purposes, however, were stayed by an 
insurmountable obstacle. 

Before the dawning of this century, as Humboldt tells us 
in his " Political Essay on Cuba," her most illustrious sons 
wrote against the slave-trade; but the dominant Peninsular 
party, for the sake of the fabulous gains to be acquired 
through that illicit commerce, charged them with being abo- 
litionists, and inimical to the mother-country ; thus causing 
the local government to exile the most influential of them to 
foreign lands, there to expiate their philanthropy. What 
occurred at that period in the neighboring republic must have 
increased suspicions on the subject, and closed the door to any 
national debate. But at last the victory of the North over the 
South, in 1864, convinced the most stubborn that the hour of 
the freedom of Cuban slaves had also sounded, and that it was 
useless to oppose the torrent of accomplished facts and -the 
public sentiment of the world. It was known, however, to 
the Cuban liberal party, that the local government had con- 
sidered slavery a useful weapon against its aspirations for 
reform; and, for this reason, that party accepted as its own 
triumph the results of the American war. But, wise and 
patriotic as it was, that party applied itself to find the best 
mode of preparing for the impending change in the rural 
labor of the island : it did not hesitate to invite the Peninsular 
Spaniards having property and family to aid in the study and 
solution of the fearful problem ; and, adopting for its plan the 



21 

liberalizing of the colonial system under the Spanish flag, it 
founded the newspaper named El Siglo, for the diffusion and 
defense of its views. 

The debate carried on by the press on the most vital ques- 
tions, the support received from the comparatively liberal 
policy of the Duke de la Torre, and General Don Domingo 
Dulce, who at that time succeeded one another in command, 
and the ups and downs of parties in Spain, led the cabinet of 
O'Donnell and Canovas to prepare for the fulfillment of the 
promise made to the provinces beyond the sea ; and they 
accordingly convened a junta of inquiry constituted by com- 
missioners elected by the municipalities of Porto Rico and 
Cuba, which should report the social, economical, and political 
reforms required. This junta held its sessions during the 
close of 1866 and commencement of 1867. The commissioners 
discharged their duties with that loyalty which belongs to 
honest and enlightened men, who love the land of their birth. 
Among other objects the Cubans asked for the gradual ex- 
tinction of slavery, recommending a project which included 
indemnification for the property ; and they also asked that 
Cuba should be governed through an assembly composed of 
members elected by the municipalities and presided over by 
the governor-general appointed by the crown. 

Under severe penalties complete secrecy was enjoined 
touching the labors of the junta; and hence it is that the 
results of those labors were deposited in the Ministry of the 
Colonies, where the original reports still lie, as in their grave. 
Yet, in spite of these precautions, the proceedings, reports, and 
speeches, were printed in New York in a book, the perusal of 
which we recommend to the public men of Spain who may 
desire to be thoroughly informed on the subject, so as to 
appreciate the high-minded views, good practical sense, and 
moderation of style, of the Cuban commissioners on the occa- 
sion of that remarkable historic episode. 

The ominous reward which they received for their loyal 
efforts is well known. On the same day (February 15, 1867) 
when the Government declared the inquiry to be closed, it 
issued a decree increasing by ten per cent, the Cuban taxes, 
and it stated in mockery that said action was based on the 



22 

exposition of tlie commissioners of the island. It was in 
vain that the latter protested against the misconstruction of 
the truth. The protest remained unanswered, and, together 
with the other antecedents of the matter, now lies in utter 
oblivion. These unauspicious tidings crossed the seas with 
electric rapid.'ty, to spread wonder, consternation, and confu- 
sion, among men who expected, with chivalrous confidence, 
the declaration of those special laws promised thirty years 
before. 

Gratuitous sarcasm, jest, and affront, so astounding, were 
never before thrust in the face of a whole people. And let it 
be noted that the people of Cuba are not a compound of In- 
dians, negroes, or sepoys, as stated by a Madrid paper, which 
boasts of its moderation and culture ; that people is composed 
of haughty and courageous men, in whose veins circulates- 
Castilian blood from old, and who in the capacity for civilized 
life yield nothing to those even who, without knowing, deride 
them. It was a Cuban who by the side of Daoiz fired on the 
2d of May, 1808, the first gun against the hosts of Murat, an 
event recorded in a marble slab whbh adorns the house of his- 
birth at Havana. It was a Cuban who, breaking through 
secular prohibitions by which Spain had repelled foreign trade, 
threw open the splendid ports of the island to all nations. 
Cubans were those who, in their country, constructed railroads 
and telegraphic lines, years before Spain dreamed of having 
such ; those who introduced the cane from Tahiti, and the 
powerful steam-plough, which for material progress should 
be there considered as two peaceful revolutions ; those also 
were Cubans who proved practically that a sugar-estate 
worked by free hands, whether white or colored, was an un- 
dertaking not only possible, but profitable, in the Great An- 
tille ; also those who, taught by travels abroad, studies, and 
perseverance, have initiated and diffused numberless improve- 
ments in machinery and agriculture, so far as to double, with- 
out increasing the hands, the production and wealth of the 
country ; those who jointly with the impulse of material 
progress consecrated their efforts to moral and intellectual 
advance ; and to them it is due that, struggling against obsta- 
cles ever rising in their path, knowledge became so extended 



23 

that, while the statistics of Spain showed that eighty-two per 
cent, of her population knew neither how to write nor to read, 
the ratio was only sixty in Cuba in 1869 ; and that while one- 
half only of the members of corporations possessed said knowl- 
edge, it was possessed by the whole of the class in Cuba. 

It is therefore easy to understand how deeply such a peo- 
ple must resent the astounding grievance which had just been 
inflicted on them. By the laughable solution given by the 
Supreme Government to the "Inquiry," the monstrous axiom 
that Spaniards did not beget children of their own nationality 
was confirmed; it was as much as to tell the Cubans that the 
latter were intended for the exclusive use of their parents, and 
that it would be vain to ask for rights never to be obtained. 
" Lasciate ogni speranza." 

A paroxysm of rage succeeded. No thought was given to 
the inequality of the contest; the adversaries were not count- 
ed ; the conflict was inevitable, if not for victory, for the 
honor of the strife : it was imperative to surrender life, in 
homage to the most holy and just of causes. 

The honored financial chief (intendente), Don Joaquin 
Alba, seems to have foreseen these consequences when, an- 
nouncing in the official gazette the immediate collection of 
the new tax, he said that, although the imposition of heavy 
additional taxes was at times the cause of sanguinary oppo- 
sition, he nourished the conviction that the loyal inhabitants 
of the island would obey in peace what the Madrid Govern- 
ment had ordered. 

There is, therefore, no connection whatever, as some im- 
passioned writers have pretended, between the revolution of 
September, in Spain, and the one which broke out in the 
Great Antille on the 10th of October, 1868. No ! the " Yara 
cry " was a yell of despair ; it w r as the manly protest of a 
people who felt that they were treated like a vile herd ; it was 
indisputable evidence that the Cubans, worthy descendants 
of the conquerors of the New World, had kept unabated the 
indomitable pluck of the Iberian race. 

An attempt has been made, through wickedness or igno- 
rance, to stain the names of the parties who started the revo- 
lution at Bayamo, describing them as ruined adventurers in 



24 

search of lucre and importance in the commotion of the coun- 
try. But Cuba in a body knows but too well, and so do her 
rulers, that the Aquileras, Cespedes, Agramontes, Arangos, 
Yaronas, Figueredos. Cisneros, and other leaders, who hoisted 
the banner of independence, were the heads of the most ancient 
and respectable families, and also the wealthiest in 1868 in 
the central and eastern departments. Limiting our remarks 
to one of the party, because the nature of this paper would 
not allow greater detail, we say that it is public and notorious 
that Don Francisco Yicente Aguilera Tamayo married Da. 
Anna Kindelan, granddaughter of a Spanish general in com- 
mand in Cuba, and the father of seven sons, was the owner of 
two sugar-estates at the time mentioned, also of many houses 
in Bayamo, and of the greater part of the vast tract of land 
extending from said city to Santiago de Cuba, a tract which 
was granted, as a commission for services rendered, to his pro- 
genitor on the mother's side, Captain Roclrigo Tamayo, one of 
the companions of Diego Velasquez, who arrived in Cuba in 
the early part of the sixteenth century. We ask, Are bandits 
and vagrants thus qualified by their antecedents? 

History will record two great truths : that Spain, through 
her injustice, provoked the revolution of Cuba ; and that the 
men who headed it have been in every respect worthy of the 
ideas of which it was the emblem. The seven years which 
the contest has lasted, although unexpectedly commenced with- 
out any arms or military resources whatever, accredit our 
second assertion, besides a hundred other considerations which 
we omit; and all this has taken place in opposing a disciplined 
and tenacious enemy, who has had a strong fleet to watch the 
coasts and who has brought successively to the field of battle 
120,000 soldiers. 

"We will not go into details about the insurrection, because 
our purpose is to calm, not to exasperate the passions. Per- 
haps unconsciously to herself, or through herimpotency, Spain 
has conducted this war in an inhuman and horrible manner. 
She was wrong in engrossing the ranks of the volunteers with 
men coming from all sources. It was worse to organize troops 
with men taken from the penitentiary ; because any civilized 
nation takes care always not to stain by contact with the 



25 

scum of society the personifi cation of national honor which 
lies in the army. How can we wonder that commanders and 
officers who were willing to command soldiers gathered from 
jails, should by their cruelties give occasion to the President 
of the United States to say with justice, and officially, to his 
country and to the whole world, that General Yalmaseda and 
Commandant Gonzales Boet had committed barbarous deeds 
which cause humanity to shudder ? 

There cannot exist two weights or two measures. Justice 
is the same for all parties : while we deplore and condemn the 
burning of private estates, which is the means practised by 
the insurrection as an instrument of war, we are also bound 
to deplore and condemn numberless deeds of those who up- 
hold the banner of Castile. If there should be in the next 
Cortes some deputy, zealous of the nation's good name, who 
should desire to be informed of the horrors committed under 
the folds of the Spanish flag, let him ask of the Colonial De- 
partment the communications sent to Madrid since 1868 to 
the present time, by the captains-general of that island ; let 
him call up, in the Supreme "War Court of Justice, the pro- 
ceedings established for the revisal by the council of officers 
which absolved Commandant Gonzales Boet of his crimes ; 
let him demand the case instituted against a captain in the 
army who feasted his regimental companions with a dish of 
ears cut on the field of battle from the bodies of the dead in- 
surgents who had fallen in fair strife ; let him ask for the his- 
tory of the case which sent to a criminal penitentiary thirty- 
four boys of Havana, and eight more to be shot by a detach- 
ment of volunteers, for a crime which they had not com- 
mitted ; lastly, let him read and compare the two proclama- 
tions issued by Count Yalmaseda in the second and seventh 
years of the insurrection, and he will find the burning of prop- 
erty and houses of the insurgents directed under regulations, 
and denunciations and murder rewarded. 

Certainly the Cuban war and its determining causes have 
not been and are not an honor to Spain. King Alfonso, his 
counselors, the new Cortes, and every one who cherishes the 
Spanish name, should hasten to wash away the stain which 
has fallen upon her. It is a calumny to say that the insur- 



26 

gents deserve the penalty due to professional evil-doers. There 
is nothing glorious to be gained by misleading for a moment 
public opinion, or by laying infamy upon adversaries with 
whom one battles. The men who have sacrificed life, prop- 
erty, friends, and family, in noble fight, or who ascended the 
scaffold with heroic courage and the immovable serenity 
shown in the days of Charles Y., Padilla, Bravo, and Mal- 
donado, have merited and will ever deserve respect at the 
hands of their greatest enemies. 

The bloody character impressed by the Spanish Govern- 
ment on the war of Cuba, and the hatred ostentatiously pro- 
claimed against the islanders by some leading men who fill 
high political posts, contrast with the course followed respect- 
ing Carlists. Several Madrid papers, carried away either by re- 
sentment or through other motives, stigmatize as bandits, incen- 
diaries, and false sons of a country which has never been a true 
country to them, those fighting in America for their rights 
as free-men, while they regard the followers of Don Carlos 
merely as deluded and deceived. Although the latter in real- 
ity are stronger opponents to the union of the nation than the 
Cubans, if they should lay down their arms they would find an 
immediate cordial reception ; the past would be wholly for- 
gotten, and they would be rewarded even by the recognition 
of the military grades obtained in the service of the faction ! 
On the contrary, for the Cubans there is no alternative except 
death on the battle-field, or death on the plea of suspicion 
when taken suddenly from their quiet and defenseless homes. 

And yet, what an enormous difference between the two 
causes, all in favor of the natives of Cuba, if we consider 
the justice of each case, and its results as they may affect 
Spain ! 

To the national life of the Peninsula the Cubans and the 
Basques constitute two exceptions : the former, because they 
do not participate absolutely in any jjolitical right ; the latter, 
because they enjoy many more than the rest of their country- 
men. The Basques have enjoyed and do enjoy every legal 
way to offer complaints and to obtain redress, while the in- 
habitants of Cuba, restrained within an iron circle forged by 
the law-maker, have only had to look for remedy to a desper- 



27 

ate appeal to arms. The Carlist War has caused the ruin of 
numerous families ; has cost Spain as much or more blood 
than that of Cuba ; it has brought her down to the painful 
necessity of defaulting in the discharge of engagement?, both 
national and foreign ; and, however impossible it may be, were 
the Basques to succeed through their secession sentiment, 
Spain would become so dismembered that she would recede 
to the state of a simple geographical name, more so than was 
once said of Italy under similar circumstances. 

Cuba, on the contrary, separated from the mother-country 
by the ocean, is not indispensable to the existence of the 
Peninsula as a nation ; and we have heard it so affirmed by 
eminent Spaniards now filling high official posts. And, last- 
ly, the history of the Cuban insurrection does not record one 
single act similar to those perpetrated by Carlists, reviewing 
those committed bj the curate of Santa Cruz down to the last 
massacre at Estella. 

Why, then, that animosity against the islanders ? 

Why are they not dealt with as the Carlists are % Can it 
be because their war-cry has been, " Death to Spain 1 " But 
does that cry mean else than death to arbitrary rule, death 
to despotism, and to the official corruption of the colony ? 
Is not that cry the reproduction of the words addressed to 
the Cortes by Salustiano Olozaga — " It is tf me that Spain 
should learn to be mother and not step-mother of the Cubans ? " 
Is not that war-cry an echo of the terrible anathema hurled 
by the great orator Castellar from the elevated standpoint of 
the Spanish Congress ? " If it be so," he said, " that the genius 
of Spain is to be always represented in America by a perma- 
nent state of siege, by the boot' of the captain-general, by the 
Babylon of sugar-estates, and, far in the distant horizon, by 
the black sail loaded with human flesh, oh, then, gentlemen, 
say with me, accursed be the genius of our country ! " 

A truce, then, to falsehood and insult. If, as it has been 
said, Spaniards have been able to make everything in America 
excepting Spaniards of their sons, let us study the causes of 
so frightful an aberration which is so repugnant to Nature, 
and it will be found that the former have been constantly at 
work to reduce the latter to the condition of an inferior race, 



28 

only adapted to be wretched instruments of their monopolies 
and speculations. 

It behooves the present Spanish monarchy to put an end 
at once, by one great act of justice, to the calamities of Cuba, 
if it desires not to be accused by civilized nations of being a 
willing accomplice in the political oppression now ruling there. 

It is time that there should be light, and we shall be the 
gainers thereby. A noble example to imitate is offered to 
the political men of Spain in the generous course of Lord 
Chatham when the War of Independence was started in the 
United States ; and let it not be forgotten that the country- 
men of that distinguished patriot who lived in his day named 
him the most English of all Englishmen, and that the epithet 
has been confirmed by posterity. 

The financial crisis which, as a consequence of the war, 
weighs on Cuba ; the reduction of her wealth by the destruc- 
tion of all kinds of estates ; the enormous debt resting on the 
colonial treasury ; the deficit of the budgets ; the difficulties 
ever increasing in the collection of taxes, because their sum 
would very soon absorb the reduced proceeds of all property ; 
the unhinged condition of all branches of the public admin- 
istration, which, owing to its corruption, has been fitly called 
by a Madrid paper the " Augean stable ; " the change in the 
attitude of the Anglo-American Republic; which, having been 
a listless spectator of the seven years' contest, now invites the 
great European powers to interfere in the matter, so that she 
may be left free to act by herself if their concurrent aid be 
refused — all this imposing array of facts and circumstances 
calls for the quick solution of the problem, before Spain shall 
be reduced to the sad alternative of accepting or repelling 
open intervention ; before she may be forced to grant, per- 
haps with dishonor, what she should now concede from her 
own self-respect, as the Journal des Debats, of Paris, has just 
asserted. 

There is no use in being fed with fancies. The Cuban 
insurrection should not be ended with bayonets, but with jus- 
tice. A deadly tropical climate, the impenetrable fastnesses of 
her virgin forests, and, more than all, the war carried on with- 
out quarter, are the powerful allies of the rebels. The ulti- 



29 

mate triumph of Spain would add no glory to her flag, as the 
resources of both belligerents are so unequal ; vet were she 
vanquished, which would be most difficult, but not impossible, 
in the long-run, she would be covered with shame. 

Spain should reject the wicked course forced on her by 
those uncompromising Spaniards of Cuba ; she should draw 
the Cubans out of the wretched condition in which they sim- 
ply vegetate ; let her allow them to have a country with the 
rights of citizens; let her fulfill her repeated promises with 
good faith, and this alone will cause the insurgents to throw 
down their arms — yes, provided the complete suspension of 
hostilities by Spanish troops should be simultaneously de- 
creed ; provided the embargoes and confiscations of estates be 
raised, and amnesty be extended to all rebels, without except- 
ing one of the leaders. 

We belong to no political party, either on this or the other 
side of the Atlantic ; but our travels and our social relations 
have placed us in contact with many of the important men of 
the Cuban war-party. We have heard from their lips that, 
while determined with stoic firmness to reduce to ashes their 
countiy rather than allow it to continue to be a machine for 
speculation for Spain, they reject annexation to the United 
States, because in that event the African race would soon pre- 
dominate; and for the very same reason they consider that 
her separation from Spain, or her independence now, would 
be ominous for Cuba. 

With the knowledge of what has been stated above, will 
the ^Madrid Government obstinately continue to exterminate 
the insurgents, while the latter carry the incendiary torch into 
the fields and cities of that island ? Would it not be more 
sagacious, expedient, and magnanimous, to forget the past, to 
throw wide open the doors of peace, harmony, and justice? 
Spain, being the most powerful, can afford to be generous, 
without losing prestige and authority. The Cubans are anx- 
ious to live like a high-minded and free people under the flag 
planted in America by her ancestors; and there is no reason 
whatever to refuse or defer longer their legitimate aspirations. 
!No effort of fancy is needed to foreshadow the consequences 
of so munificent a national act. By the suspension of hos- 



30 

tilities the expenditures of the war estimates are at once 
lessened ; the host of emigrants wandering in foreign countries 
will return to their native soil ; confidence will be renewed ; 
millions of dollars which had disappeared from the island, 
looking for security, will come back like gushing torrents ; 
the now exorbitant premium on gold will fall ; exchange will 
become regular; enterprise will be aroused to numberless ob- 
jects which call for its action, and the two proud factions here- 
tofore in opposition, feeling now that the blood spilt and the 
bitterness endured have ended in fraternity, the more sincere 
since it would be based on the honor of all, will dedicate their 
efforts to building up a splendid future for Cuba — not like the 
Bible colossus, whose golden head contrasted with feet of clay, 
but like a vast temple, built of solid and undecaying granite. 
God forbid that we should gratuitously offend Spain, suppos- 
ing that, after the numberless hecatombs of children, men, and 
women, sacrificed through the failure of the "Inquiry" of 
1867, she should seek to repeat the same solution under forms 
more or less disguised! We- refuse to believe that Spain, in- 
tends to deceive the civilized w T orld by a Machiavelic interpre- 
tation of the spirit which inspired the promise of special laws 
to govern Cuba. By studying the records of the sessions of 
the Cortes prior to the adoption of the decree of the Constitu- 
tion of 1836 and 1845, it will be seen that by that declaration 
the legislators intended to reserve to themselves the power to 
grant self-government to Cuba. The decree issued in 1866, 
for the well-known commission of inquiry, by the cabinet of 
O'Donnell and Canovas, in its text will unfold the paramount 
idea of organizing a complete political life in the West Indies. 

Let it be recalled that, three months after the uprising at 
Yara, and when General Lersundi was in command, eighty 
distinguished citizens went to the palace to confirm what has 
been stated here, one half of whom were Cubans and the 
other half Spaniards, among the latter some who a little later 
filled the first official posts of the nation. 

Let it be remembered, lastly, that under Lersundi's suc- 
cessor, and while many Peninsular and native Spaniards in- 
sisted on the same views, meetings were held, authorized by 
the Government, where the scheme of a political constitution 



31 

best adapted to the special circumstances of Cuba was dis- 
cussed, although the fruitful work of concord had to be sus- 
pended, in view of the threatening aspect manifested in those 
days bj the press, and the uncompromising, turbulent Spanish 
masses of Havana. 

Thus it is that what was always promised to the Great 
Antille, what it desires now, what in a complete state of peace 
was petitioned for by the colonial commissioners, and in 1868 
and 1869 was approved by the conservative Hispano-Cuban 
party, consists in the government of the country by itself 
under the banner of the lions and the castles. 

To grant only deputies to the Cortes, to establish a con- 
sultive council at Madrid for colonial objects, an idea which 
has been favored by some, or any half-way solution imported 
or badly copied from the system applied by France to her 
small colonies, besides being an anachronism, would leave alive 
active germs of renewed and more sanguinary future out- 
breaks to come, inasmuch as every day there are, and will be, 
bom a greater number of Cubans. 

Senor Canovas said in the preamble of the royal decree 
of November 25, 1865, referring to the "Inquiry," that the 
scientific and literary progress of Cuba and Porto Rico, their 
population and wealth, especially of the former, the grow- 
ing extent and importance of their foreign commerce, placed 
them in an exceptional condition requiring very different laws 
from those in observance in other provinces beyond the seas. 

The same Senur Canovas was empowered as minister, 
under the above-named decree, to interrogate the members of 
the " Junta of Inquiry," and ascertain whether it was expedi- 
ent that " all political rights established for the benefit of the 
inhabitants of the Peninsula and adjacent islands should be 
applied to the two sister Antilles, or whether they should be 
to a certain extent modified." 

The idea of the Government in 1865 went as far as the 
political assimilation of Cuba and Spain ; and never could 
there be less reason than at present to deviate from a measure 
so fruitful if moulded into self-government, demanded as it is 
by the claims of family, of history, and of intrinsic justice, if 
the permanent pacification of the island is wished for in good 



32 

faith. Let the embrace between Cubans and Spaniards be 
brotherly and sincere, and, while quickly rising from the heavy 
burdens laid on her shoulders by the war, let Cuba be able to 
change without disturbance the social condition of her rustic 
laborers, thereby conciliating respect toward a holy principle 
with the preservation of the work of civilization. 

To come down to details about the future constitution of 
Cuba would be out of time and place here; yet we think it 
proper to say a few words on the subject. 

Its first chapter should secure the inherent rights of every 
civilized man ; those which are so identified with his existence 
that, without them, even were the Cubans to obtain every 
political franchise, their condition would offer slight change. 
It is imperative that the islanders should be sectored against 
arrest, imprisonment, or exile from their country; against hav- 
ing their homes invaded, excepting in the cases and through 
the forms prescribed by law ; they should only be accountable 
for their acts before the ordinary courts of justice ; they should 
be permitted to express freely their ideas by word or writing, 
and to meet peacefully to discuss public affairs ; exceptional 
courts should be suppressed, as well as permanent councils of 
war, unbounded and dictatorial authority, embargoes, and con- 
fiscation of property, and whatever else tends to outrage the 
dignity of man. With a view that these franchises be not 
frustrated, they must be guaranteed through a political organi- 
zation reflecting, with some variations, the one in force in Spain, 
just as the light of a satellite is the reflection of that which 
comes from the centre of its orbit. 

Therefore, the executive power with its logical functions 
should be exercised by the superior governor of the island, ap- 
pointed by the crown, who should never control the military 
and naval forces. 

The legislative power should be vested in a Colonial Assem- 
bly constituted of members elected by the municipalities of 
Cuba, possessing the requirements of the electoral law. Said 
Assembly should have authority to initiate, discuss, and resolve 
all public matters of the island ; it should fix the system of 
taxation, pass laws for the protection of the press, regulate 
elections as well as the rights of assembly ; it should diffuse 



33 

education among all classes, organize the administration of 
justice, and introduce into the codes now in force such changes 
as the island may require ; it should propose to the home gov- 
ernment postal and commercial treaties that may be conven- 
ient to enter into with foreign nations ; it should authorize the 
construction of railroads, telegraph-lines, and other works 
of public improvements ; it should patronize and promote agri- 
culture, and the industry of the country ; it should subdivide 
the cattle-estates now held in common by their owners ; it should 
establish civil registration of the population, and the territorial 
census ; it should determine the character of all officials in the 
island, their salaries and responsibilities ; and, lastly, it should 
sanction or disapprove of the annual budget which it should 
be the duty of the governor-general of the colony to present. 

The above-named Assembly (we especially invite intention 
to this point) should have the exclusive authority to determine 
measures intended for the final abolition of slavery. Cuba, who 
is the one to bear the immediate injuries following that serious 
event, and the Cubans who during half a century have been 
earnestly asking for it, should be permitted the honor of sub- 
scribing this great act of justice. It behooves the prestige of 
Spain not to refuse to grant that authority ; and under its 
shield the property-holders of Cuba will cause to disappear 
forever an institution which, corrupting whatever it touches, 
is stigmatized by the sentiment of the whole world. 

The advocates of the status quo in Cuba will doubtless 
raise a hue and cry at this suggestion, asserting that our re- 
quest points to independence in a period more or less remote. 
Yes, that is the truth ; but is there a way of avoiding it ? 
How can the natural evolution be escaped which turns the 
child into a youth, and the youth into a full-grown man \ Is 
there aught eternal in the life of individuals or of races \ 

Parties who, while united, bear a life of satisfaction and 
contentment, never separate from one another, excepting at 
the latest possible day. Does Canada claim independence 
now, although forty years ago she fought for it as Cuba does 
at present ( Xo, and once more we say no, for the obvious 
reason that England, at the same time that she generously 
acknowledged her errors, granted the Canadians the power to 



34 

govern themselves, and from ardent rebels she turned them 
into grateful subjects, faithful to the British crown. Has 
any one dared to qualify as degrading or weak this magnani- 
mous act of the British nation ? 

What would be Cuba's object in seceding from Spain, if 
the latter, by giving precedence to the dictates of justice and 
national honor, over the egotistical interest of a party, were to 
grant them, on a liberal political organization, solid foundation 
for a quiet and prosperous future? The relations between 
Cuba and her mother-land would then grow wonderfully. 
Immigration by whites, which the Cubans have at all times 
endeavored to promote, and which has been ever thwarted by 
the colonial government, would be much developed. The 
current of laborers, which from Catalonia and the Biscayan 
coast now runs to South America, would change its course 
and reach Cuba, in the certainty of being well received and of 
finding proper reward for their industry in the extraordinary 
fertility of the soil. Their children, Cubans like ourselves, 
would feel precisely the same anxieties and desire for the well- 
being of the island as their parents, and all would sing praises 
to Spain, as a common mother dispensing such blessings. 
This change appears to us so simple and natural, that we are 
at a loss to understand that it should be condemned as fanciful 
or impracticable, unless by uncompromising partisans of one 
or the other of the opposing parties. 

Yes, a day will at last dawn when future generations will 
find Cuba with a population of four or five millions of white 
inhabitants, desirous to exercise sovereign power, and to com- 
pletely secede from Spain. But this will take place causing 
neither fears, nor blood to be shed, and the well-ripened fruit 
will then show the richness and robustness of the branch from 
which Cuba sprung. 

Two arguments have heretofore been employed with success 
by the advocates of the status quo in the Great Antille : the 
one is the inexpediency of abolishing the system of rule which 
has brought on Cuba unexampled prosperity ; the other, the 
danger of innovations, in view of the persistent desire of the 
American Union to take possession of that colony. This last 
assertion is a mistake, and the first we call specious sophistry. 



35 

Let us begin by remembering that the prosperity of Cuba 
is eminently wicked, since those do not partake of it who con- 
tribute to produce the same by the sweat of their brows. Let 
us add that such prosperity is the more precarious, because 
slavery has no other refuge than Cuban in the civilized world. 

Inasmuch as the customs produce much more in Cuba than 
in all the Peninsula, and the items of statistics and balance of 
trade show a greater movement in the colony than in Spain, 
it is easy to understand that the latter should be overflowing 
in commendation of the u Pearl of the Antilles" as a pros- 
perous land. But, if we compare foreign colonies, possessing 
analogous conditions of feracity and cultivated by free hands, 
we shall notice a very remarkable difference. 

Referring to the labors of the Commission of Inquiry of 
1867, deposited in the archives of the Colonial Secretary, and 
which the Government ought to have printed in full with no 
delay, we find that the quantity of sugar drawn in Cuba, from 
cane harvested from a given area, is one-half the amount ob- 
tained at the Reunion, Jamaica, or Bengal, and one-third of 
the quantity obtained at Barbadoes and English Guiana. 

After nearly four centuries elapsed since the discovery and 
colonization, Cuba has scarcely opened and cultivated a fourth 
of its area. 

On its surface, which is almost the same as that of Eng- 
land proper, the population does not exceed 1,^-00,000 inhab- 
itants, while in the former it exceeds 14,000,000 according to 
the last census. Australia, which thirty years ago was used 
as a station for the confinement of a certain class of criminals, 
counts now 2,300,000 souls, and shows a commercial move- 
ment of £90,000,000 in exports and imports, and Cuba only 
shows £40,000,000 from the same source, or one-half; it being 
worthy of notice that the growth of Australia is not chiefly 
based on its gold products, but on the cattle aud wool trade, 
the value of which goes far beyond the gains from the mines. 

It is but just, therefore, that the old-fashioned exaggera- 
tions of the progress of Cuba should be given up, because, 
taking into account the gifts which she owes to Nature, we 
must admit in truth that she is in her infancy. 

The historical day has come when Spaniards and Cubans 



36 

should be frank, in order to overcome easily, for the weal of 
all, the mountain of obstacles which have been described as in- 
superable heretofore. The material development of Cuba, in 
spite of the worst of governments and the cancer of slavery, is 
chiefly due to its proximity to the United States. 

From the latter she has acquired the impulse to act, and 
the fever of enterprise. She has obtained at a small cost, on 
account of the nearness of the coasts, the numberless me- 
chanical implements to reduce the laborers in the manufac- 
tories of sugar, and to convey it quickly to the coast. The 
people of America have been and still are the great — and we 
were going to say the exclusive — consumers of the sugar and 
tobacco of the Antilles. Without that market of thirty mill- 
ions of people, Cuba's production would have remained 
wretchedly small, and her opulence would never have been 
decried because not more than two hundred thousand boxes, 
out of the three millions, of sugar produced by the island, are 
taken to Spain, whereas the American Union purchases more 
than two millions. 

Consequently, whatever be the station that Cuba holds, she 
holds it through her powerful republican neighbor, and the 
thermometer that fixes the value of her produce is to be 
found not in Madrid but in New York ; her well-being is not 
altered through Spain's disturbances, but by the pecuniary 
circumstances of Anglo-American merchants; and whenever, 
by reason of war or any extraordinary emergency, the ports of 
that nation should be closed to us, want and appalling misery 
would be spread all over the island. Such is the naked truth, 
told in plain language, and with no exaggeration. 

Yet more fragile is the second argument of the advocates 
of colonial status quo, when they assert that our neighbors 
-are anxious to possess Cuba. 

It is a fact that during the last thirty years, and during 
the six months preceding presidential elections, the press of 
one or another party published articles on annexation for the 
purpose of aiding the prospects of their respective candidates. 
It is also true that stfme excited groups have at times at- 
tempted to accomplish the idea with insignificant means. 
But all these doings, however alarming and inexplicable 



37 

they may seem to people who breathe the atmosphere of po- 
litical death, are unavoidable in a country where freedom is 
untrammeled, and it can in no wise be charged to the Gov- 
ernment. 

The idea of taking possession of Cuba has never been en- 
tertained at Washington. Let it be remembered that, when 
the South American republics obtained independence, they 
thought it dangerous to their future existence that Spain 
should continue to possess the key of the Gulf of Mexico. 
Let it be remembered that, in order to avert the danger, Boli- 
var assembled a congress at Panama, and prepared an expedi- 
tion under command of General Baez, which he had to give 
up because of strenuous opposition shown by the United States. 
Let it be taken into account that it was while the Democratic 
party lodged its President at the White House, that, under 
its aggressive policy and advocacy of the "Monroe doctrine," 
California was conquered and the Florida and Texas annexa- 
tions took place, and withal the idea of acquiring Cuba was 
not even then seriously encouraged by the high functionaries 
of the Government. 

These traditions of national views have become the acting- 
policy since the Republican party has held power. 

No opportunity could have been more favorable for the 
expulsion of Spain from her colony than the rising at Yara. 
To have acknowledged the belligerency of the rebels from the 
beginning would have been more than enough, yet the Gov- 
ernment of the United States has abstained from the act. 
The views expressed in the Congress of Washington, by Gen- 
eral Banks and his friends, inimical to Spain, drew forth a 
contrary sentiment from an immense majority accepting the 
reply by the great orator Sumner, who rejected the annexa- 
tion of Cuba to the republic. Our argument is fully demon- 
strated by the peaceful solution of the rugged question of the 
Virginius, and most emphatically so by the fact that the Stars- 
and-Stripes are not waving over the battlements and castles 
of Havana. Spain, therefore, has nothing to fear from the 
United States, excepting in the event of hostilities ; the Ibe- 
rians would then show -their traditional valor, but their an- 
tagonists would unquestionably obtain the ultimate triumph. 



38 

This contingency excepted, Spain's rights over Cuba will 
be respected, because the United States do not wish that the 
latter should be possessed by another and more powerful na- 
tion ; and because, if they rule over the island, they would be 
obliged to keep in active service a considerable naval force to 
guard six hundred leagues of coast from the attack which, in 
case of war, might come from England or another great naval 
power taking advantage of that weak flank for the purpose. 
Moreover, it is known that the United States would see with 
repugnance even the peaceful acquisition of Cuba, because at 
present the nation is undergoing the painful work of social 
reconstruction, by assimilating to its numbers four millions 
of ignorant slaves, suddenly made free, who will be unable, at 
least until a second generation passes, to fulfill the new duties 
of free citizens. 

However, for their honor and in obedience to the call of 
civilization, the United States will insist, perhaps with greater 
perseverance, smarting under the probable indifference of pre- 
judiced Europe to Mr. Eish's note, on requiring from Spain the 
fulfillment of her promises to Cuba. They see in these prom- 
ises the end of the horrors of war, and of the injury inflicted 
on American citizens. With their fulfillment the United 
States will expect to see Cuba freed from untold monopolies 
now weighing her down, and adding wondrously to her prod- 
ucts, thereby offering to American capitalists and enterprise 
a field of trade and commerce much larger than that which is 
open there to-day. 

We are about to close our remarks. To require the ter- 
mination of the rebellion to take place, so as to grant to Cuba 
a new political organization, is to set down the results before 
the causes from which the former are derived ; and, to do so, 
is to willfully prolong the shedding of blood. 

The policy of forcible repression, so generally enhanced 
now, degenerates into parricide when coldly applied to civil 
wars. It is proper not to forget that the war in Cuba is a 
terrible expiation of a multitude of errors — an expiation which 
falls on all without exception, and leaves none untouched — 
one wherein no one will venture to throw the first stone, be 



39 

he ruler or ruled. It is important, therefore, and impera- 
tive, to put aside means of coercion, to forget the past, to gain 
the good-will, to make men of one mind, and be guided not so 
much by the head, and more by the impulses of the heart. 

An eminent Spanish writer says that, " when political pas- 
sions result in blows and in the clash of arms, the victor will 
give the law at his will, and the subjected, though not van- 
quished, will take the first chance to try its fate once more ; 
and quiet and peace are not to be reached until mutual conces- 
sions are made, and bonds and pledges are given in advance." 

The Madrid Epoca, whose opinions cannot be suspected 
as partial, has also said that a spirit of compromise marks 
•everywhere the sentiment of temperate men, and that to pre- 
serve, to progress, and to compromise, are the three important 
traits of a great administration. 

Never was there a more fitting opportunity to apply these 
salutary maxims : Let the beginning be not to pardon, which 
is an offensive epithet, but to grant full amnesty to the insur- 
gents, and to whoever has been exiled by government orders ; 
let the embargoes and confiscations be raised ; let Cuba be 
authorized to govern herself, and by this peaceful, reasonable, 1 
and just means, the war will at once come to an end, and the 
principle of national integrity will be reconciled with the 
legitimate right of the Cubans, with no slight to Spain's high 
authority, nor derogatory capitulations from either party. 

This is the only mode in which it behooves the young Don 
Alfonso to inaugurate a great and glorious reign. 

It remains for the writer of these lines to explain why 
they are not subscribed with his name. 

The state of things produced in Cuba by war and pas- 
sions does not allow Cubans, even those who have resided 
many years in Europe, to state what takes place and what is 
wanted there, without incurring responsibilities which affect 
not solely the writer, but beloved beings dependent upon 
him. This is the reason why, for the first time in our life 
(and would to God it were the last !), we. have taken refuge in an 

1 Martinez de la Rosa, " Historical Sketch of the Policy of Spain from 
the Time of the Catholic Kings down to our Days."— Epoca, March 18, 
1871. 



40 

anonymous writing. But we are bound to add that, intimate- 
ly connected as we are with Spanish society through the af- 
fectionate ties of friendship and family, it required no effort 
on our part to exclude from this paper words of hatred and 
sentiments of vengeance which our heart never nourished. 

Our task is ended : would to Heaven that our words may 
find echo in Spain's public men, in whose hands are placed at 
present the destinies of Cuba! Should it not be so, a day will 
come when posterity will call them to account, just as the 
civilized sentiment of the world does now, for so flagrant a. 
denial to the demands of justice ! 

Geneva, February 8, 1876. 



